Wednesday, October 24, 2007

People's Power 1990-2006

For a man fully uneducated in any of the art forms, I had the good fortune of coming across Ragini Upadhyay Grela some ten years ago. In fact, I had sought her out – for a special reason. Tired of speaking to and hearing one another in various regional seminars and dialogues, some of us in the “South Asian civil society” thought of the possibility and the value of bringing together a special group of people to see how creative imagination addresses the social themes engaging our minds at the time. Accordingly, in Dhaka in February 1997, South Asian women and men representing different art forms including literature, the theatre, performing arts and painting and sculpture assembled to make their presentations and share ideas and imaginations on such enduring themes as women in society, social justice and fundamentalism and communalism. Raginiji was there from Nepal and she did us proud. She left lasting impression with the assembled South Asian community with her presentation and paintings on the theme of women and freedom.

Through her series of paintings including Samaya Chakra Raginiji has shown how her journey in “arts for life’s sake” continues merrily. Happily for all of us, she did not shy away from making her presence felt also in the street as we campaigned peacefully for Loktantra. In the current series of her paintings, she has now ably captured for us the soul and the might of the people’s power that is transforming Nepali politics and society for good. That she has decided to donate a substantial part of the sale proceeds to the families of the martyrs in Nepal’s democratic movement speaks volumes on how Raginiji thinks about her work and the lives of the Nepali people.